love crime novels. This was a fun one, I enjoyed the characters,the history and the description of them, I liked the way the story developed and kept me interested, I definitely will be reading more of the series,
A fun story with a good mystery that kept me changing my suspicions and suspects throughout, Ceepack is a retired MP turned small seaside town policeman who has a very strict code of right and wrong coupled with an extremely mellow personality.
Ceepack and his summer apprentice must get to the bottom of an ever changing murder investigation that has too many odd suspects, A fun and light read that was good from the very start, This is the first in a series that I will definitely be revisiting,
Jeff Woodman did an excellent job narrating, his voices were distinct and very believable, Surprisingly good combination of a well written story and artful narration, The Anthony Award winning first book in the John Ceepak/Jersey Shore mysteries,
"From page, this debut stands out as refreshingly different, Grabenstein brilliantly evokes the endearing seediness of a Jersey Shore town in summer but it's his development of the CeepakBoyle relationship that makes this an absolute triumph.
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BOOKLIST Starred !
There isn't much fun in the sun when a billionaire real estate tycoon is found murdered on the TiltAWhirl at a seedy seaside amusement park in the otherwise quiet tourist town of Sea Haven, New Jersey.
John Ceepak, a former MP back from Iraq who lives his life in strict compliance with the West Point Honor Code, has just joined the Sea Haven Police Department.
The job offer came from an old Army buddy who wanted to give him at least a summer's worth of RampR to escape the horrors of war.
Instead, Ceepak heads up the murder investigation, He is partnered with Danny Boyle, ayearold, parttime cop who doesn't carry a gun and only works with the police by day so he has enough pocket money to play with his beach buddies by night.
The TiltAWhirl murder pushes Ceepak's deep sense of honor to the limits as unexpected twists and turns keep the truth spinning wildly in every direction.
TiltAWhirl made many Best Mysteries oflists: The SunSentinel, Detroit Free Press, The Christian Science Monitor, and more!
PRAISE FOR TILTAWHIRL
"Chris Grabenstein's TILTAWHIRL is a fastpaced thrill ride with lots of twists and turns and good writing from start to finish!"
JAMES PATTERSON
"There's fireworks down the Jersey shore in this first book in a promising series.
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KIRKUS REVIEWS
"Thoughtful, funny and exciting debut, "
DICK ADLER, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"Just like the amusement ride it's named after, TILTAWHIRL spins with brisk twists and exciting turns as it veers off into still another plot tendril.
This debut from former advertising executive Chris Grabenstein hits just the right tone, melding a multilayered plot that is equally actionpacked and poignant, hardhitting and funny, sarcastic and serious, sometimes all in the same paragraph.
"
OLINE COGDILL, THE SUNSENTINEL Voted One Of The Best Mysteries of!
"Funny, smart, and smoothly written, TILTAWHIRL is all kinds of twisty fun.
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THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR Voted One Of The Best Mysteries of!
"This is a fun and fastpaced tale, The ending is as unexpected and shocking as a ride on the actual contraption, and the denouement is sure to leave readers with a glow.
Two thumbs up You go, Grabenstein!"
WINSTONSALEM JOURNAL
"Briskly paced, well plotted, and narrated with a cynical humor that makes it a real joy to read.
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RON BERNAS, THE DETROIT FREE PRESS Voted One Of The Best Mysteries of!
"Full of unpredictable twists and turns, There's plenty of fizz in the chemistry between the two protagonists to keep the novel and the reader spinning, "
BOSTON GLOBE
"This impressive debut by New York City advertising executiveturnedmystery writer Grabenstein is set in idyllic Sea Haven, a touristy summer town.
. . and follows cop extraordinaire John Ceepak and his parttime junior partner, Danny Boyle, The story is related by Boyle, whose youthful inexperience and desire to be a kid are the perfect foil for Ceepak's mature, bythebook demeanor, Grabenstein's writing is direct and punchy, providing many laughoutloud moments, Contents: Violence, frequent swearing Fbombs and religious bombs, and sexually unsavory elements,
Book one in this mystery series, set in a small oceanside resort town on the Jersey Shore, This particular murder occurred at the boardwalk, The two main characters are John Ceepak, an honorable, bythebook, truebluemaybetooblue former military police officer, Ceepak lives by the code and compares life to Bruce Springstein lyrics, He becomes a hero to his partner Danny, a very young rookie cop who lives by a more pedestrian moral code,
I enjoyed the interactions between Danny and Ceepak, I enjoyed seeing Danny learn basic police procedures and investigation methods,
As for the suspense, I have mixed feelings, The villain was not obvious by any means we follow all sorts of red herrings, Some characters breached, and I didn't see how Squeegie could have known where, . . The plot twist at the end felt like a cheap trick, I hate it when children .
Some humor along the way, like the car wash scene, I also had to chuckle at Ceepak's lingo and behavior, Such a boy scout.
Grabenstein needs to get to the point, I began to roll my eyes at all the descriptions of things that didn't matter, Example: At the motel, when the cops run down the hall, I get to hear all about the food trays left outside the doors, and the color of the napkins on said food trays.
I pay attention, thinking maybe the trays will matter to the plot maybe a cop will trip over one, or find a clue on one.
Nope. Just useless filler. Authors should be descriptive, but not about irrelevant stuff,
Audio: Excellent narration by Jeff Woodman, However, too many harsh and loudly voiced Fbombs and religious profanity made this a poor choice for
listening during car trips with family, The final chapter also made this book a very poor choice for mixed ages, Too bad. So glad to have finally gotten to this one, I bought it years ago on an ebook sale along with the next two in the series, Definitely will read more of the series, I had read several good reviews in Publishers' Weekly, etc and can see that they didn't mislead me!
The story is told in first person by Danny Boyle, parttime officer with the Sea Haven police department on an island off New Jersey.
He works during the busy, touristy, summer months, He is basically a chauffeur for John Ceepak the series is named for him a fulltime officer who has a Code, Danny is a twentysomething who hasn't chosen his career path yet, He is very knowledgeable about Sea Haven which helps Ceepak a great deal as he is a new comer, Ceepak doesn't drive for some reason that goes back to his years in Afghanistan, that's why Danny is hired for this job,
There is a murder in Sea Haven John and Danny are on the case, The book is a good one, just enough humor, mostly from Danny with John as his foil, being a real Dudley Dooright but in sunny Sea Haven rather the cold Yukon.
I love the names of the shops in Sea Haven that Danny always lists, he gets a charge out of them, Places like the ice cream shops "Do Me A Flavor" and "Scoop Sloop", There's the Pancake Palace, Santa's Sea Shanty, and King Putt Golf, This murder takes place at the Sunnyside Playland at the "TurtleTwirl TiltAWhirl"
Humor aside, this is a good murder mystery and a story that kept my attention.
I was alway sorry to put it down and happy to find the time to pick it back up, A very good mystery with great characters and lots of surprises, I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series! So this book won an award for "Best First Mystery" With such two dimensional characters, and hackneyed, obvious plot, I can't imagine why.
Maybe the series gets better, but I'm wary of investing the time to find out, John Ceepak and Danny Boyle, two Sea Haven, NJ cops, are breakfasting at the Pancake Palace, discussing a tricycle theft the usual sort of summer crime in town when ayear old girl runs up the street in a bloody dress screaming that someone killed her father, Reginald Hart.
Someone emptied amm clip into Hart as he sat beside his daughter on a tilt a whirl car in the Sunnyside Playland before it was open.
Hart was a billionaire real estate tycoon though many called him a slumlord,
Ashley Hart describes the shooter as a local vagrant and drug user known as Squeegee because he sometimes works for tips at Cap'n Scrubby's Car Wash.
But that night, when Ashley is kidnapped from her mother's gated mansion, Ceepak and Boyle realize there is a military precision to the crimes far beyond the capacity of an aging hippie who is missing too many brain cells.
The puzzle twists and turns and had me guessing right up to the epilogue,
Puzzling mysteries alone are not that rare, The best detective stories also have settings that fascinate and sleuths we love to hang out with:B Baker Street with Holmes and Watson the Navajo reservation with Chee and Leaphorn St.
Mary Mead with Miss Marple or the Orient Express with Hercule Poirot,
I enjoy Grabenstein's Sea Haven, for I share his love of Americana of ice cream shops called "Do Me A Flavor," or the "Scoop Sloop," in a town "best pictured on one of those perky placemat maps dotted with squiggly cartoons of buildings like The Shore Store, Santa's Sea Shanty, and King Putt Golf.
"
His detectives are a study in contrasts and yet a complimentary pair, Danny Boyle, the narrator, grew up in Sea Haven, He's a part time summer cop, in large measure because it gives him an edge with vacationing college girls in the pubs on Saturday night.
John Ceepak is new in town, fresh from ayear stint as an MP in the army that ended after a tour of Iraq, The son of an abusive alcoholic father, Ceepak lives by "a Code" that his partner, Boyle admires but doesn't fully understand: serve and protect never lie, cheat, or steal ever.
The two men are bound together by a growing mutual admiration and a love of Bruce Springsteen, By the end of the Hart affair, Danny Boyle decides to apply for full time duty,
Tilt A Whirl reminded me of a couple of chicklit detective novels I've read, I think that's due to the humor and irony of Boyle's first person narration, His upbeat, "lemme tell you what happened" tone makes you want to buy him a beer at The Sand Bar and hear all about his latest case.
A lot of Danny's humor is couched in food references, as when he describes a witness as "a few fries short of a Happy Meal," or when, after a break in the case, he says, "I'm feeling kind of jazzed, like you do after chugging two cans of Red Bull and snarfing down some Hostess DingDongs.
" I think that's what the male equivalent of chicklit would sound like,
Danny Boyle has a thoughtful edge as pronounced as his irreverence, In a key thematic passage, he quotes a math teacher who once explained Chaos Theory in terms of a tilt a whirl: "if the operator keeps the whole thing going at the proper speed of.
revolutions per minute, it's practically impossible to predict what will happen next, . . The teacher called it 'mindjangling unpredictability, ' Chaos Theory in action,' for two tickets a ride, "
Tilt A Whirl was a pageturning mystery that was also a lot of fun, I downloaded the next book in the series, Mad Mouse, also published in, Stay tuned for an update on that, .
Free Tilt-a-Whirl (John Ceepak Mystery, #1) Generated By Chris Grabenstein Text
Chris Grabenstein